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Miss Philippines crowned Miss World after protests
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Miss Philippines was yesterday crowned Miss World 2013 in a glittering finale on the Indonesian resort island of Bali amid tight security following weeks of hardline Muslim protests.
As hundreds of Muslim hardliners held a prayer session in a mosque near the capital to express their anger at the contest, Megan Young wept as she won the coveted title in the final on Hindu-majority Bali.
The 23-year-old, wearing a pearl white gown, promised to be “the best Miss World ever” in front of a cheering crowd in a venue guarded by heavily armed police and water cannons.
Young, who is studying digital media and also presents TV shows in the Philippines, pledged to “just be myself in everything I do, to share what I know and to educate people.”
Organizers will breath a sigh of relief that the finale of the three-week pageant passed off smoothly after thousands of hardliners had protested across Indonesia, denouncing the event as a “whore contest.”
Some embassies had also alerted their nationals on Bali to the possibility extremists might attack the pageant, a chilling warning on an island where bomb attacks in 2002 killed around 200 people, mostly foreign tourists.
The demonstrations prompted the government to order the pageant be moved from Java to Bali, where it opened on September 8, and there is little radical influence.
Prominent hardline group the Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI) had pledged fresh protests yesterday — but, in the end, no demonstrations materialized.
However, hundreds of members from the FPI and other hardline groups gathered for a prayer session in Sentul, just outside the capital Jakarta, to express their opposition.
Miss World organizers had originally planned the final in a 10,000-seat venue in Sentul.
Those at the prayer gathering were addressed by a preacher who lashed out at the pageant, which radicals claim goes against Islamic teaching, said FPI member Ustad Maman.
“Indonesia has already shown how it feels about Miss World — we rejected it here, we reject it anywhere,” he said.
Some 127 contestants took to the stage last night for the final and they were quickly whittled down to six. France came in second and Ghana was third.
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